Scientology orients itself toward celebrity, and by doing so, the church awards famousness a spiritual value. People who seek fame—especially in the entertainment industry—naturally gravitate to Hollywood, where Scientology is waiting for them, validating their ambition and promising recruits a way in. The church has pursued a marketing strategy that relies heavily on endorsements by celebrities, who actively promote the religion. They speak of the positive role that Scientology has played in their lives. When David Miscavige awarded Tom Cruise the Freedom Medal of Valor in 2004, he praised his effectiveness as a spokesperson, saying, “Across ninety nations, five thousand people hear his word of Scientology every hour.” It is difficult to know how such a figure was derived, but according to Miscavige, “Every minute of every hour someone reaches for LRH technology, simply because they know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist.” Probably no other member of the church derives as much material benefit from his religion as Cruise does, and consequently none bears a greater moral responsibility for the indignities inflicted on members of the Sea Org, sometimes directly because of his membership. Excepting Paul Haggis, no prominent Hollywood Scientologist has spoken out publicly against the widespread allegations of physical abuse, involuntary confinement, and forced servitude within the church’s clergy, although many such figures have quietly walked away.
Since leaving Scientology, Haggis has been in therapy, which he has found helpful. He’s learned how much he blames others for his problems, especially those closest to him. “I really wish I had found a good therapist when I was twenty-one,” he said. In Scientology, he always felt a subtle pressure to impress his auditor and then write up a glowing success story. Now, he said, “I’m not fooling myself that I’m a better man than I am.”
The same month that Haggis’s resignation from the church had become public, United Artists, Tom Cruise’s studio, terminated Haggis’s development deal. I asked if the break had anything to do with his resignation. Haggis thought for a moment, then said, “You don’t do something that obvious—it’d be a bad PR move.” He added, “They’d run out of money, so we all knew we were being kicked out.”
Recently, he and Deborah decided to divorce. They have moved to the same neighborhood in New York, so that they can share custody of their son. Deborah has also left the church. Both say that the decision to end their marriage has nothing to do with their renunciation of Scientology.
On November 9, 2010, The Next Three Days premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre, in Manhattan. Movie stars lined the red carpet as photographers fired away. Jason Beghe was there, and he told me that he had taken in Daniel Montalvo, the young man who lost his finger in the church book-publishing plant. Montalvo had recently blown from the Sea Org. He was nineteen years old. “He’s never seen television,” the actor marveled. “He doesn’t even know who Robert Redford is.” Nazanin Boniadi, who has a small part in the movie, was also there; Haggis had given her the role after learning what had happened to her after the church had engineered her match with Tom Cruise. “Naz’s story was one of those that made me realize I had been lied to for a long time, that I had to leave and do so loudly,” Haggis later confided.
After the screening, everyone drifted over to the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel. Haggis was in a corner receiving accolades from his friends when I found him. I asked if he felt that he had finally left Scientology. “I feel much more myself, but there’s a sadness,” he admitted. “If you identify yourself with something for so long, and suddenly you think of yourself as not that thing, it leaves a bit of space.” He went on, “It’s not really the sense of a loss of community. Those people who walked away from me were never really my friends.” He understood how they felt about him, and why. “In Scientology, in the Ethics Conditions, as you go down from Normal through Doubt, you get to Enemy, and finally, near the bottom, there is Treason. What I did was a treasonous act.”
The film did poorly at the box office. It had the misfortune of opening to mixed reviews on the same night that the last installment of the Harry Potter series premiered. Haggis had to close his office. It looked like another bleak period in his career, but he followed it by writing a screenplay for a video game, Modern Warfare 3, which would go on to set a sales record, earning $1 billion in the first sixteen days after its release.
I once asked Haggis about the future of his relationship with Scientology. “These people have long memories,” he told me. “My bet is that, within two years, you’re going to read something about me in a scandal that looks like it has nothing to do with the church.” He thought for a moment, then said, “I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t.”